If I see one more Iceland Advert...

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RIP

Christmas has been going down hill ever since they released the A Team action figures in 1985. Not since a caveman named Ug managed to convince his girlfriend to consent to a threesome with the lass from the next valley, using only cave paintings, grunting noises and animal bones, has history provided a cooler man than BA âBad Attitudeâ Baracas â yet here he was, in my hand, looking like he had advanced Sickle Cell anaemia, with arms that didnât bend and a woefully underscale M16 that could only be gripped in one hand. Those could have been the greatest toys ever, but The Man had to stamp on my dreams in order to get his profit margin.

I remember confronting my mum about santa. I wasnât worried about his non-existence â I was a realistic child â but I frigging well wanted an explanation as to who the hell all those strange old men had been in the department stores and crappy familiesâ club parties. More importantly â why the feck had I been required to sit on their oddly stained and quivering knees in order to get a present?

The religious aspect proved only slightly better than this thinly veiled paedophilia: so this doris falls pregnant, but sheâs still a virgin â honest âand shepherds come roundâ¦well, because shepherds are well known as party animals (?!) and all these rich blokes bring untold riches when the child is born, yet the kidâs parents still live in the crappy part of Judea making chairs for the rest of their lives. Then this guy grows up, and can tell a mean story and looks like Charlton Heston or something â and he can turn water into wine. Up until this point, theyâve got me; the breads and fish thing I can get, Jesus shares his food with the starving crowd and it precipitates everyone sharing what little food theyâve got, so no-one goes hungry â itâs a good story that lives in the same neighbourhood as reality â but water into wine? If you could do that, youâd start a much cooler religion than Christianity, which basically only tells its followers to drive like retards and put little fish stickers on their cars. I started a religion in Prague once, after uttering the immortal phrase âLetâs drink this, I think itâs a local vodka or something.â It had lap dancers and mermaids and lots of smiting. No man who is off his face from Palestinian homebrew would come up with âTurn the other cheekâ â it would be âLook like that at me again and youâll be eating through a straw, sunshine.â So at that point in theology, me and Christianity part ways.

Regardless of spiritual leanings, however, Christmas is rooted in the culture of our used-to-be-once-I-think-ask-grandad great country, so should be respected. Unfortunately itâs been hijacked by Primark and Girls Aloud. We celebrate Christmas by drudging around poor quality shops, fighting against a tide of reeking humanity. We spend lots of money on UTTER GARBAGE for the people we supposedly love, eat ourselves stupid then watch crap TV. Actually, that last sentence made me like Xmas a little bit moreâ¦where was I?

What if we stopped doing what the market told us to do? What if we all just sat down outside HMV and said: âEnough â we are not spending another pound until you feckers stop p1ssing around.â I donât want to hear a Â£20 Keyboard rendition of âMistletoe and Wineâ while shopping for pants in November. I donât want to see that thing off of that girl band who was married to someone but became a junky for about a week, dancing like a gipper and advertising the ultimate chocolate gateau for Â£4. If itâs that good, charge more you numpties â no wonder Iceland is sh.it. I donât like the fact that my skint sister feels obliged to get me a present, even when I tell her not to. Iâm a Captain in the British Army! Iâm born to impulse shop. If I want something, Iâll get it myself when I donât have to stand in the checkout queue with people who smell like cat faeces. You cannot afford an XBox 360, a small sex shop in amsterdam and a season ticket for Candy from Spearmint Rhino, so don't waste your money getting me a jumper!

So, in an effort to seize back the beauty of Christmas, I reckon we steal a pregnant mother, leave her in the range hut at Sennybridge, then dress as pirates, spacemen and samurai and go visit her when the sprog drops. I could turn some vimto into cheeky vimto and we could make a new religion that claims its homeland as Brecon â no fecker would fight over that. Whoâs with me?

LE

RTFQ, are you suggesting we cease to buy into soporific patterns of mindless consumption that have plagued and ultimately destroyed overly affluent cultures throughout history?

That we cease to become market fodder for Unilever, Wal-Mart and Rupert Murdoch, and thereby not go into needless debt for Christmas (the means by which Citibank owns your a$$, in addition to the aforementioned corporate borg)?

How very Frankfurt School of you...you friggin' commie. Report for your execution immediately.

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest," but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. (Sydney J. Harris)

"Not everyone who goes to bullfights is cheering for the matador." (or something like that, CC_TA)

Old-Salt

Old-Salt

I donât want to see that thing off of that girl band who was married to someone but became a junky for about a week, dancing like a gipper and advertising the ultimate chocolate gateau for Â£4. If itâs that good, charge more you numpties â no wonder Iceland is sh.it.

LE

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, a glass of rioja in either hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOW!!! WHAT A RIDE !!!!!!!!!!!

War Hero

RIP

Don't be weird, what decent religion ever had a doris in charge of it? Wicca? Oh, and the crappy ones where everyone smeared dung on their bodies and got slaughtered in their thousands by Romans. Don't throw the pantheons of Rome and Greece at me - they had goddesses, but wisely stuck a bloke with a manly beard in charge. Same with the Norse.

Be an interesting end to the age old man vs woman capacity for pain argument. "Ooh, ooh childbirth blah blah." Crucify her and see if she makes more fuss than that fine Oxford boy, Jesus of NATO.

War Hero

Don't be weird, what decent religion ever had a doris in charge of it? Wicca? Oh, and the crappy ones where everyone smeared dung on their bodies and got slaughtered in their thousands by Romans. Don't throw the pantheons of Rome and Greece at me - they had goddesses, but wisely stuck a bloke with a manly beard in charge. Same with the Norse.

Be an interesting end to the age old man vs woman capacity for pain argument. "Ooh, ooh childbirth blah blah." Crucify her and see if she makes more fuss than that fine Oxford boy, Jesus of NATO.

As you said, you're a Capt in the British Army, therefore you shouldn't NEED an excuse to get into an argument with the Frau's colleagues from Blob and Spunkbubble. The mere fact that you earn less for doing more should be enough to irk rightuous indignation about what a bunch of leeching cnuts they really are and how they couldn't hack it in the "killing fields of Nam" the way you could. Then embark on lots of loud, drunken singing of patriotic songs before calling one of them a "pufta" and inviting him outside should he wish to "do sommat about it...like". I find this technique works a treat in bringing about the requisite argument.

Former Int Cell, RLC, and OTC/ACF Forums Moderator (Until the banality started to hurt)

RIP

As you said, you're a Capt in the British Army, therefore you shouldn't NEED an excuse to get into an argument with the Frau's colleagues from Blob and Spunkbubble. The mere fact that you earn less for doing more should be enough to irk rightuous indignation about what a bunch of leeching cnuts they really are and how they couldn't hack it in the "killing fields of Nam" the way you could. Then embark on lots of loud, drunken singing of patriotic songs before calling one of them a "pufta" and inviting him outside should he wish to "do sommat about it...like". I find this technique works a treat in bringing about the requisite argument.

No need, no need. Most of them can't hack it in a busy street, let alone the killing fields of 'nam' (do you mean cambodia?). It's shocking that many of them were headhunted. One of them, an antipodean unsurprisingly, asked me how the ballet went this weekend. He pronounced it ballette, instead of ballay. Mmmmmm, he's safe when the old zombie brain-eaters come a-munchin.'

War Hero

No need, no need. Most of them can't hack it in a busy street, let alone the killing fields of 'nam' (do you mean cambodia?). It's shocking that many of them were headhunted. One of them, an antipodean unsurprisingly, asked me how the ballet went this weekend. He pronounced it ballette, instead of ballay. Mmmmmm, he's safe when the old zombie brain-eaters come a-munchin.'

LE

As you said, you're a Capt in the British Army, therefore you shouldn't NEED an excuse to get into an argument with the Frau's colleagues from Blob and Spunkbubble. The mere fact that you earn less for doing more should be enough to irk rightuous indignation about what a bunch of leeching cnuts they really are and how they couldn't hack it in the "killing fields of Nam" the way you could. Then embark on lots of loud, drunken singing of patriotic songs before calling one of them a "pufta" and inviting him outside should he wish to "do sommat about it...like". I find this technique works a treat in bringing about the requisite argument.

No need, no need. Most of them can't hack it in a busy street, let alone the killing fields of 'nam' (do you mean cambodia?). It's shocking that many of them were headhunted. One of them, an antipodean unsurprisingly, asked me how the ballet went this weekend. He pronounced it ballette, instead of ballay. Mmmmmm, he's safe when the old zombie brain-eaters come a-munchin.'